Summer part 1

I am a professional at summer vacation. I am kinder, productive, cleaner, and more relaxed. Even my husband loves me more:) It's only been about a week and a half of vacation yet I feel like so much has happened! The best part of break is hanging out with Noah everyday. We wake up together, eat breakfast, watch the today show, go to the farmers market, play at the park, go to toddler pop stars dance class, share Popsicles, kiss, and hug a lot.

I love my little Noah!

Last week was busy! On Wednesday we went with Grandma to a special event at the Wild Animal Park. It was awesome! It was a private event for donors-I will never go to that Wild Animal Park any other way. We got to ride the carousel for free-AND ride the African Safari for free too! Plus there were no lines-and we ate a yummy dinner! It was a magical evening!

Noah playing in the bird's nest.

Noah and Grandma getting ready to go on the safari!

Mommy and Noah as bats!

The second part of the week was crazy because I had my tap recital and my mom came to visit. For those of you that know my mom know that our relationship could be compared to a root canal, an enema, a mammogram, chemo/radiation, or a straight up punch in the face. Things that are a pain in the butt, but inevitably have to happen. However, this trip was actually enjoyable. We had fun, relaxed, and genuinely enjoyed each other. It was so weird.

Last Saturday night was my tap recital in Balboa Park. After a year and half of tap classes it was time to shine on stage. It was hilarious. I cannot wait to post the professional photos that we took! I even ordered a coffee mug with our fancy photo on it. (Someday that is going to be an amazing goodwill find for someone!)  Our class was such a motley crew! It was really fun to go through this experience with my girl friends-Sarah, Nancy and Janine. We laughed so hard-and our husbands got some great ammunition after seeing us in our slutty ganster costumes. We looked ridiculous, but we tapped our little hearts out! One of the funniest moments was actually walking to the theater from the holding room because we literally had to walk through a wedding! Yes-20 slutty gangster -loud tap shoe wearing adults. It was hysterical! Then in the middle of our dance Mary (age 65) slipped and fell, and I had to help her up.  Insanity! I cannot wait for fall semester. Learning a new skill has been a lot of fun. And all this transpired because I was watching SYTYCD and thought "that doesn't look hard-I can do that." Boy-am I an idiot! I love tapping, and the sound it makes on the floor-kind of like how I love the sound of a casino.

Sarah is the bestest friend of all time! This pic was taken at our dress rehearsal.

Sarah, Nancy, Janine, and me getting ready to "tap our troubles away." Don't be jealous of our neckties:)

So back to my mom. She came out for my recital, and stayed for four days. It was really sweet of her to fly out here just for my recital, and it meant a lot. We stayed at the Hotel Del Coronado for four days and it was amazing. We leisurely lunched, went to the spa, shopped, had cocktails, swam, and genuinely embraced our time together. Noah loves seeing Nana-and now believes that the Del is "Nana's Castle." He has so much fun with Nana. She introduced him to shrimp cocktail, and he introduced her to his train collection.

Mom and I on the beach after brunch.

Watch out ladies-He is all mine!

Our happy little family.

Nana made Noah laugh:)

Sunday Brunch at the Del.

Noah and Nana kisses.

We made Noah go shopping all day on Friday so we made good on our promise to go swimming. However, it was literally 64 degrees out, and so we had to get his suit off right after we got out. We couldn't resist taking a picture of his chunky butt!

 Needless to say it has been a wonderful start to the summer, and I cannot wait for the rest of the summer. I am looking forward to Noah's dance recital, a girlfriends getaway, train rides, the pool, and sleeping.  In the words of Noah-see ya soon!

Party foul....

Wow.....it has been far to long since my last post. Five months is a long time to not write. There were many moments where I thought "this is a great blog idea"- obviously it never came to fruitition. Now that I am on summer vacation I will get back on the horse. There is lots to discuss like-tap class, Noah, my awesome hubby, and my mom comes to visit tomorrow. So stay tuned for my inspirational musings but, don't hold your breath because obviously I am very inconsistent.

I am shallow.

Hello friends. I apologize for the shallowness of this blog, but I cannot apologize for my love of a good deal. I also love Marc Jacobs. For Christmas my husband surprised me with a rose gold/sparkly MJ watch. The screaming was intense on Christmas morning and it wasn't Noah.

This little story starts with a best friend and shoe shopping. Sounds like an amazing story doesn't it? My shopping partner in crime is my friend Sarah. She is my kindred spirit. I love her like a sister. We decided to get some Christmas shopping done at the mall a few days before Christmas. We hit up the mall and ended up at DSW shoes warehouse. It's like a crack house for shoe addicts. It's dangerous. We were shopping for black ballet flats for work. We both needed some and DSW was our Mecca. While I was there I found the most beautiful pair of Marc Jacobs black patent ballet flats. However they were 199.00! And that was marked down from 295.00! Insanity-and I would never purchase shoes for that price. So I tried them on and walked around in them, and then walked away.

When I got home I looked them up online and they were only 99.00! While many of you think that this is also an insane amount to spend on shoes-you are correct. So while I was dreaming of wearing them; my head and bank account knew better. Ok...I do have to admit this...I did pray to baby Jesus that somehow someway I could get these perfect, life changing shoes. I am pretty sure that Jesus just laughed at me and balked at my shallow selfishness- but hey-at least I admit I am shallow.

So.....for Christmas I received a $50.00 visa gift card from my awesome mother in law. She knows my passion for all things shopping. Now I started to justify the fact that I could pay 50 bucks for 300 dollar shoes. I knew that if I waited till after Christmas there would be a deal and I could get these glorious shoes. Guess what I DID!!!!!!!! Not only did I use my 50 dollar gift card, I got free shipping AND an online coupon for 20 bucks off shoes that were 99 and up!!!! So in the end I paid $36.24 for $300 shoes. DEAL OF THE CENTURY!!

Here is my excitement when I saw them on my doorstep.

Getting my precious box in the mail.

Can you hear the angels singing?

Every pair of shoes needs their own bag to snuggle in.

Yes-I am hugging my shoes, like I would my own son.

Pure shallow joy.

Adorable.

I love me some baby Jesus praying, mother in law giving, marc jacobs ballet flats! If only I could wear them out of the house because they are so pretty I don't want to mess them up. They are currently sitting on my bedside table all shiny and shallow.

Holiday magic

I am in love with the holiday season. I love the music, the lights, disneyland, cooking, fancy wrapping paper, charlie brown everything, the smells, and the magic. In our home we do the chocolate advent calendar in addition to our manger scene advent calendar. Everyday we do both of them and Noah helps mommy with both calendars. I tend to eat the chocolate:) The other evening we were driving around as a family and out of nowhere Noah said "ohhhh pretty!" when he saw the lights. It was so magical! Seeing Christmas through a child's eyes is amazing! Every time Noah see Santa he says-"Ho, Ho Ho!" It's so funny. Now don't get me wrong...I love me some Jesus, and I love teaching my son about his birthday. Christmas is all about Jesus; which is why Noah will have three gifts under the tree. Jesus received three gifts on his birthday, and so will Noah:)

This year I experienced Christmas in a new way. Now that I am teaching at an elementary school, Christmas is much different. There is a wonder and excitement that starts on December 1st. I was not used to Christmas sing alongs, holiday crafts, and all the Christmas schwag. The teachers at my school wear the sweaters, and tee shirts, fancy Christmas gear. Me, and the other two middle school teachers were the only ones all December not sporting some Christmas gear. *note to self-get to the goodwill and purchase ugly sweaters pronto! I was taken back by the showering of gifts that my students gave me on the last day of school. It was a little uncomfortable-but secretly inside I was jumping up and down like a kid. When I got home and unloaded my bounty Noah kept screaming and jumping up and down. It was hilarious. One of my students baked me beautiful cupcakes. They were super yummy. I have the most amazing students.

One of the holiday traditions at our school is the Barnes and Noble night. The students come dressed in their jammies and the teachers read to them. My students went to the event as elves. Their job was to greet people and help the students find books to read. It was really fun, and I love how my 7th graders really took on the role as elves.

Shannon really got into the holiday spirit by dressing as Santa for the whole school. We had a school assembly where the students sang Christmas carols led by the grade level teachers. We had to sing "let it snow" and our song had the longest musical interludes ever. It felt like we were up there for eternity in front of the 900 students. At any rate-Shannon came out at the end and the students were besides themselves. He then went around to all the kinder classrooms. Each student got to tell one thing that they wanted for Christmas. Some of the responses were hilarious. Of course most kids wanted video games, a puppy, barbies, but some of the requests were so precious-new shoes, a cupcake, or the simple "I want to have a Merry Christmas!" It was such a magical day.

I hope that this holiday season brings you peace, happiness and joy.

Praying for radical change!

Ok...I have to admit it. I hate showing weakness, or even letting others know that I am struggling or sad but lately I have been grumpy, anti-social, and down right impatient. I have been in a funk. Everyone has been getting on my nerves, situations have really frustrated me to the point of no sleep, and I have been stressed out. The other day I came home from work and collapsed in my husbands lap and cried. I mean cried all my makeup off and convulsed. Then yesterday on my way to tap class I got a phone call that literally put me in a tail spin of sadness. What has been so frustrating is that I cannot even talk about it. The other day my friend Rece called me a 5:30 am because she knew that I was hurting and needed a girlfriend to talk too. It was so comforting to have her to talk to but I felt like I couldn't even put into words all the stress that I was feeling. I felt like I was just complaining telling her everything that was wrong. It's like I cannot even voice where I am at right now. Even Shannon tries and I just say, "I'm fine. It's all good."

After tap class I started thinking. All day I went about my errands, family time, and church in a state of thought. " What is my problem, and how can this funk change?" I came up with all kinds of scenarios of how to solve all my issues, but in reality they were not realistic. At work when my students are frustrated I like to quote the great Vanilla Ice, "If there was a problem; yo I solve it!" Then last night while putting Noah to bed and saying his prayers it came to me.

PRAY FOR RADICAL CHANGE! I am going to PRAY FOR RADICAL CHANGE in all areas of my life. I am making a sign and putting it up in my bathroom so that every morning I see it and PRAY FOR RADICAL CHANGE. I am going to let go of my stress, sadness, and fear and PRAY FOR RADICAL CHANGE!

I am also going to post these verses on my bathroom mirror so they slap me in the face every morning! It is time to get out of this funk.

Philippians 4:6-7 do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

Psalm 107:28-30 Then they cried to the LORD in their trouble, and he delivered them from their distress. He made the storm be still, and the waves of the sea were hushed. Then they were glad that the waters were quiet, and he brought them to their desired haven

Fall Break.

Fall Break was awesome. It was super fun for me to pretend that I was a stay at home mom and just get to play with Noah. Two weeks of Noah and mommy time. I believe that it is harder for me to go back to work than it is for Noah to get back on his schedule. While teaching my students is such a joy, there is nothing like just being home.

I was able to take Noah to Sea World a couple times. Grandma even joined us one day!

We ran into a our friends Ed and Vivienne at Sea World!

Soooo remember in August when I said I had scabies....I didn't have scabies. I actually had bedbugs. It's very shameful. The only thing we can think of is that we brought them back with us from WDW. Thank you Mickey Mouse. So I threw away all of our bedroom furniture. It was very sad and painful. We are free now and our house is safe. However now I have no money to buy all new bedroom furniture so I got a little creative. I took a bedside table that we had in the garage and created a new bedside table for me.

Before

After-I love the purple! Now our bed room is grey, eggplant purple with our lime green bedding.

I had to get creative since we were not going to buy a new head board. So I took the left over spray paint and painted frames. Then Shan got the deer head from zgallerie. I love our new "headboard" When you have deer in your dreams it means peace, and tranquility.

We took naps.

We giggled. Alot.

I visited my old students at Montgomery.

I sewed an "night owl" pillow for Noah, a robot pillow case, and a chord cover for Noah's robot mobile.

We decorated for Halloween.

We tested Halloween costumes but Noah will be Mickey Mouse again this year. The rocket was not happening.

We got super messy!

We also got Noah's first hair cut EVER. He was such a big boy.

Shannon did a triathalon and he is doing another one on the 30th. I am officially married to Richard Simmons.

I cannot wait for Thanksgiving break. It's only 4 weeks away!!!!